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Freedom of the Seas 



By 

Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan 

Justice of the Supreme Court 
State of New York 



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Published by the 
FRIENDS OF IRISH FREEDOM 

280 Broadway, New York 



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INTRODUCTION 

IF I were a man of riches, I would put this pamphlet in 
the hands of every man and every woman in our 
America. 

The author is one of the ablest among the Justices of 
the Supreme Court of New York. He is a man of cul- 
ture, a man who has read much, observed much, and 
thought more. All the ore he has dug from the mines of 
literature, of science, of philosophy, of history, he has 
passed through the crucible of his own meditation and 
weighed in the balances of his own judgment. Both on 
the bench and in his study, Justice Daniel F. Cohalan is 
an honest man. 

The facts and the forecasts which he has set forth in 
these printed pages that follow should be taken to heart 
by every American, by every friend of human freedom, 
by every man who truly desires to set his feet in the path 
that leads to the shrine of the whole world's liberty. 

This little work is one of the torches that light the 
way to that shrine, uplifted here and there by wise and 
brave men, who love the great family of mankind to 
which we all belong. 

—Philip Francis. 






The Freedom of the Seas 

By Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan, Justice Supreme Court, 

New York 

The position of England as the dominant world power was made 
secure for some generations to come, in the opinion of the English 
diplomats, when their demand that the freedom of the seas should not 
he brought up for the consideration of the Peace Conference, was assented 
to by the representatives of the United States. 

Astute, experienced, trained men, skilled in diplomacy, they secured 
for themselves before the Conference even met, that which was of the 
greatest value to them. They left for its consideration, only questions 
that, while of the utmost importance to the individual nations and peoples, 
counted practically for nothing, so far as the control of the world was 
concerned. They were confronted on the part of America by men with 
small knowledge of world affairs and who had little or no experience in 
dealing with trained diplomats. 

The representatives of the British Empire were secure; — were certain 
of their position of dominance from the outset, and could afford to look 
with great complacency upon the Conference, governed, so far as they 
were concerned, by conditions which made it impossible for them to lose. 

They realized— because the subject had been studied by their pre- 
decessors for generations; and they had the advantage of all the accu- 
mulated knowledge thus acquired; — they knew that the nation that con- 
trolled the seas would control the world. Hence, when — as may be be- 
lieved to their utter astonishment — they succeeded, by a slight show of 
insistence on their part, in having the representatives of the other countries, 
in the majority at the Peace Conference, agree to their proposition that 
the freedom of the seas might not be discussed there, they secured, as 
they believed, the very thing they had accused Germany of struggling 
for in the war — namely the practical control of the world. 

How adroitly and easily and yet how thoroughly this was done is 
evidenced by the testimony of Premier Clemenceau as reported in his 
speech on September 25th last in the Chamber of Deputies in his reference 
to Great Britain and the freedom of the seas. 

"As regards the freedom of the seas, England has no need to demand 
it of any one. She already has it, and there are none to dispute it. I have 
already told you in this very place, and you applauded me, how I related 
to President Wilson a conversation I had with Premier Lloyd George 
on this subject: 

"Lloyd George said to me: 'Do you recognize that without the 
British fleet we would have been unable to continue the war?'" 

"I replied: 'Yes.'" 

"Then Lloyd George said: 'Are you disposed to prevent us, should 
the case arise, from doing the same thing again?'" 

"I replied: 'No.'" 

"I reported this conversation to Mr. Wilson and he was not at all 
troubled by it. Mr. Wilson said: 'I have nothing to ask of you which 
could displease or embarrass either of you.'" 



SEA CONTROL IS WORLD CONTROL 

It has become a truism, as Admiral Mahan and other naval writers 
have proved time after time, that any nation that can control the seas 
can dominate the world. These writers have proved it from the experi- 
ence of history and one will need only to glance casually at the story of 
the nations that led civilization for centuries past, in order to see how 
completely true is this fact. 

Spain more than three hundred years ago, — when she was in the 
height of her glory and power; when she ruled Europe, — swept the seas 
with her ships. It was not until the fleets, the privateers and buccaneers 
of England broke the Spanish sea power that the English were able to 
emerge from their Island home and dominate the people they reckoned 
with beyond the confines of their damp and foggy Island in the North 
Atlantic. 

Holland was commercially the first power in Europe when Von 
Tromp with the broom bound to the mast head, swept the shores of 
England, looking for some English fleet which would stand and fight 
against the Dutch. 

Three-fourths of the surface of the earth are covered by the oceans, 
and it has been through the control of the seas, more or less strongly 
held during the last three centuries, that the British Empire has 
grown from its small beginning to its present alarming size, when 
the King of England rules every third person on earth and almost 
every third square mile of land as well as all of the oceans of the earth. 

That any nation should possess such power is not alone without 
precedent, but it is a menace to the liberty of all the other peoples 
of the earth. Tyranny through all the ages of history, has been the 
necessary consequence of the possession of arbitrary power. While 
philosophic writers set forth at great length many reasons for assert- 
ing that benevolent despotism is the ideal form of government, the hard 
fact remains in the experience of mankind, that Abraham Lincoln, the 
greatest of all Democrats, spoke the truth when he said that God 
Almighty never made one people good enough to rule over another 
people. 

If this is true when it has to do with the relationship of two small 
or neighboring peoples, it is even more so when one people, no matter 
how great we may admit their gifts to be, are put in the position 
of ruling over one-third of all the people of the earth. 

THE CECILS— THE RULERS OF ENGLAND 

The British Empire is so immense in size; so tremendous in influ- 
ence in all other countries; so powerful in directing the course of 
other nations, that one rarely stops to think that in the last analysis, 
it is only another name for the governing group who dominate, control 
and direct its activities. 

That group is only a handful in number and is made up of the 
families which, generation after generation, have supplied the rulers 
of England and through that, the rulers of the British Empire. The 
very heart of this group is the family of the Cecils which since Eliza- 
beth's time has almost continuously been the dominant and controlling 
power of England. Who they are one can easily ascertain: as to how 
they secured the major part of their wealth and landed holdings, let 
us take the statement of David Lloyd George, Premier of England, 
some time since their dreaded foe, now, for the moment, their cher- 
ished spokesman. He said in the debate in the House of Commons 
on May 16th, 1912, of the Cecils: "What is the story? Look at the 
whole story of the pillage of the reformation. They robbed the Catholic 



church; they robbed the monasteries; they robbed the altars; they 
robbed the almshouses; thev robbed the poor and they robbed the 
dead." 

Sometimes the Cecils rule in person; sometimes they rule through 
others. Sometimes they openly guide the English ship of state and 
at other times permit the helm to be turned over nominally to some 
one else — but actually, they are always in control. For hundreds of 
years, they have acted openly whenever what would be termed the 
reactionary forces were in control — whether called the Tories, Conserva- 
tives, Unionists or some other high sounding name which was only a 
cover for the rule of the privileged few over the mass of the needy 
many. At other times, when it suited the fashion of the hour to make 
the masses believe that the day of the special privileged class was 
waning, they controlled the foreign policy of England through those 
who were supposed to represent the masses. It is a fact that even 
English Liberals or Radicals cannot deny that the foreign policy of 
England remained practically the same under all administrations since 
England started to build up her Empire on all the continents and most 
of the islands of the seas. That policy has always been consistently — 
directly when they dared or could — indirectly when they were forced 
thus to act — to build up the English Navy and through it to gain and 
hold the control of the great highways of commerce that command 
the seas of the world. For generations past they have carried that 
policy to such an extreme as to insist that their navy must be equal 
at least to that of the two powers in the whole world that were 
nearest to them in strength and they have greatly boasted that they 
were determined to rule the seas. 

THE ENGLISH DIPLOMATS 

Profound students of human nature, the greatest master diplomats 
the world has ever seen, the statesmen of England realize the tremen- 
dous power of appearing always to be standing for the rights of 
humanity and because of that, even in their most selfish contests, they 
have claimed to be fighting against the forces of evil and arrayed on 
the side of civilization and justice. It matters not whether they were 
fighting against a Catholic King of Spain or a Protestant President of 
a South African Republic; an infidel Sultan of Turkey or a Pagan 
Emperor of China, they always availed themselves, so far as they 
could, of the good opinion of mankind — in general by insisting that they 
were fighting for right and for liberty and by putting their opponents 
in the position of appearing to lead the dark forces of evil and injustice. 

The result has been, down through the centuries, that they have 
made for the English a reputation of being a liberty-loving people; a 
people who loved justice and favored progress. Although they have 
been put to it to explain how, no matter which side won the war they 
have gained in territory, in treasure, in power, they have managed by 
their extraordinary diplomatic skill, which amounts to genius, and by 
use of their weapons for making opinion through propaganda (long 
before others were awake to a realization of the power of such methods) 
to hold among great masses of sensible men in every country on earth, 
the name of standing for right in most of their quarrels. All the 
time they have been building up their Navy and adding to their sea 
borne commerce until, ^ to-day England, though practically bankrupt 
and insolvent, is sanguine of recuperating her fortunes and regaining 
her financial power if she can retain for a couple of generations her 
supremacy and dominance on the ocean. 



THE ENGLISH FLEET 

To-day her fleet serves a two-fold purpose. In the first place it is 
the means by which she holds together the Empire which < is 
scattered all over the world. In the second place — and of no less im- 
portance to her — it is the one weapon by which, if it be left in her 
possession, she hopes eventually to win the contest now going on 
between England and the United States for the commercial supremacy 
of the world. 

We may as well face conditions as they are in the hard, practical, 
common sense way in which the statesmen of England face the situa- 
tion. They are under no illusions about the contest before them, before 
they can become the complete masters of the world. 

For three hundred years England has been following the policy 
laid down by Elizabeth of breaking down the nations which, through 
chance or choice, have become her commercial rivals. In that time, 
she has broken down the power of Spain, of Holland, of France and 
of Germany and for a time, because of the way in which American 
commerce was swept from the sea during the Civil War by privateers 
built and manned and armed in England, she hoped to have success- 
fully disposed of America as an actual or possible commercial rival. 

To-day, — and entirely as a consequence of our entry into the war, 
which in the last analysis we won, — for had it not been for the con- 
tribution of men, of money, of resources, made by us, the result of 
the war would have been entirely different, — to-day, the United States 
is the only first-class power left on earth that is solvent, that is self- 
supporting, that requires no assistance from without its own borders. 
But our industrial growth has been so vast and so rapid that we 
produce in eight months of^ the year as much as we can consume in 
a year. Because of this fact we are actually dependent upon the 
markets of the world to keep our factories running and our industrial 
population employed. There must come an inevitable contest between 
the United States and the British Empire for those markets and in that 
contest one or other of these countries must triumph and one or 
other of those countries must be vanquished. 

THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT 

The Marquis of Salisbury, the head of the House of Cecil, saw 
this plainly two generations ago, when he said that America and Eng- 
land were "rivals in every port and in every Court." It is attaching 
no blame to the statesmen of England and it is in no spirit of hostility 
to her people that one points out the fact that what the statesmen of 
England believe is necessary for her welfare is attained, — if possible, 
by the genius of her diplomats, if necessary, by the marshaled array of 
all the forces of her allies and of those parts of the Empire that 
produce fighting men. Thus has it been since the days of Henry the 
Eighth and his virgin daughter, Queen Bess. Thus will it be so long 
as the genius of the Cecils and their associates, either by skill or by 
force, can bring success to the English side. 

This is no new game with the statesmen of England and there 
is very little left for them to learn from bitter experience. This world 
war, just brought to a successful end by America's contribution to it, 
is not without its precedents in the long history of British Imperialism. 
Time after time she has struggled for great prizes in all parts of the 
world and in the main, no matter who bled, or who paid, England 
gained in power. Close as she came to colossal defeat and absolute 
destruction in the recent war; certain as was her annihilation but for 
the assistance of America; — (which her spokesmen like Sir Douglas 



Haig are beginning now to minimize and ignore) — she came just as 
close one hundred years ago when England was pitted against the 
genius of that unmatched man — Napoleon Bonaparte — and if it had 
not been for the assistance then given to England in the last battle 
by her cousins, the Germans, England would have gone down to in- 
evitable defeat and the British Empire, instead of being one of the 
two remaining Empires on earth, would have then vanished as a dream, 
as have the mighty Empires that in this last war were smashed into 
impotent parts. 

ENGLAND'S CONTROL OF THE SEAS— WHAT IT 
MEANS TO HER 

Weighted down with debt at the end of the Napoleonic crisis— a 
debt relatively almost as great as the present debt— British statesmen 
managed to pull their country through because of their hold upon and 
of their mastery of the seas. Through that mastery they practically 
drove from the ocean every country that did not submit to their con- 
trol, and took to themselves the lion's share of the profit made in the 
carrying trade of the world. 

England when compared with the great lands of the earth is a 
little country of 50,000 square miles. Her ships carry to her the raw 
material of all the lands of the earth in order that they may be manu- 
factured^ by her skilled artisans, and by her industrial classes into 
articles in demand by the rest of mankind. 

These ships, freighted with these materials, carried to England 
from all parts of the earth, carry back the manufactured articles from 
England, sold to the people of these countries — articles manufactured 
out of the materials they had produced — and turned back to them after 
England has made a large profit in handling, manufacturing and selling 
the articles. In that way, at the expense of all the rest of the world, 
England has accumulated treasures and gained power and strength in 
every corner of the globe. 

She became not only the world's work shop but the world's banker. 
There from every land went those who sought assistance in the de- 
velopment of countries, in the building up of industries, in the con- 
struction of railroads, in executing public works, in improving in any 
way the material conditions of life. This was all a source of immense 
profit to England and because of it she has been able to make in a 
hundred ways the profit of the honest broker, and amass in a hundred 
ways still more wealth, still greater power. 

She brooked no opposition where it could be overcome, but if 
other countries prospered and grew she looked with complacency on 
their growth so long as she controlled the seas, always secure in the 
thought that their growth necessarily contributed to her wealth and 
added to her power. 

ENGLAND IN THE CIVIL WAR 

For a decade in the middle of the last century, England was greatly 
worried over the extraordinary progress made by the American mer- 
chant marine. She viewed w T ith alarm the growth in size and in num- 
ber of our clipper ships w T hich carried American freight and American 
commerce to every port on the earth. 

When the unfortunate division arose between the North and the 
South in the sixties. England promptly hastened to the assistance of 
the Confederacy ana with the privateers built and armed by her, suc- 
ceeded in driving the American mercantile marine from the seas, with 
great consequent profit to herself. It has been estimated that for fifty 



years after the Civil War, England made on an average a profit of 
three hundred million dollars per year out of carrying the ocean borne, 
commerce of America. 

Is it any wonder that she did her best to cause the defeat of the 
United States during the war of the Rebellion and to drive from the 
seas the Flag of the nation that had become a successful rival through- 
out the world? 

ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT 

England looked with complacency upon the industrial progress and 
growth of Germany until that growth sought to question the naval 
supremacy of England. From the hour that Germany was able to build 
ships which crossed the Atlantic and came into the New York Harbor 
in less time than British ships could come, many thoughtful observers 
believed that the doom of Germany was sealed. The Germans might 
with safety build up their military power on the continent so far as 
England was concerned, without protest or interference, but the moment 
in which Germany invaded England's chosen field, that moment Germany 
had to contend against the diplomatic skill which had never been beaten, 
the power of bringing about a coalition that had rarely if ever been 
exercised in vain. 

Many students of history believe that Napoleon could have mastered 
Europe with the assent or support of England if he had not crossed to 
Africa and had not threatened India and the British Asiatic dominions. 

In the same way modern Germany came into existence with the full 
consent of England, tore Alsace-Lorraine from France; Schleswig from 
Denmark, and placed an indemnity of five billion francs upon the beaten 
France amid the admiring plaudits of the English governing classes. 
Germany might have ruled the continent to her heart's content, as an 
ally of England, if she had not the audacity or folly to attempt to sup- 
plant England on the seas and rend from her weakening hand the trident 
of Neptune. 

A despoiled Poland might writhe for one hundred and fifty years 
under the conquering heel of a Hohenzollern without a protest from 
England, but any attempted interference in the profits and the power 
that came from the control of the seas, meant that Germany in this 
generation, like Spain, like Holland, like France in other days, must 
fight for her existence. But that is another story. 

AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND ITS 

CONSEQUENCES 

To-day we of America are interested in problems that are to afreet 
the future of mankind. We have here in our country a population of 
110 million people and so great has been our industrial growth that we 
produce in less than eight months of every year, all that we can possibly 
consume in the entire year. F'or four months of each year we are de- 
pendent upon the markets of the world to find a sale for our surplus 
products in order that our people may be kept constantly at work. To 
reach these markets it is a physical necessity to cross the oceans of the 
earth. To reach them now we have the mercantile fleet that was brought 
into existence by the exigencies of the war. This will enable us to 
carry our raw materials and manufactured products into every corner 
of the globe. Under our own Flag, we may thus reach in every land 
at their ports of entry, every purchaser who seeks such materials as we 
have for sale. 

In doing this, we must come into competition with Englishmen 
already there and we must seek, in friendly rivalry, to take from them 

8 



which 

war. 

iquanimitv 



«po„ I ; s i t ch hu c^ a pe n tfr„ e o^tstsu^sted'r 11 with *»-■■ 

of a friendly nature? Of com J T, I™„ y V " r J° ng con "»«e to be 
admiration for the country tha saved ,£ a F s m En S h t shmen a " fi »ed with 
themselves from complete ruVn thev will PS? ft*™™ ann J hiI a.t>°« and 
individual cases the Englishman i a likeahl M? Vu <for ln ™ny 
sense of gratitude for those who saved them 1^' m f" ayed . by a 
protest, the natural strain which wM com, t tf • W '" , bear v' ithout 
having to divide a market whi'cn' tSe'y fSMSSL fe« 

Knghsh trader will look with ever inrre.Li K>? Waterloo— the 

into his special field made bv ?!?* Pn L ? " g ttern . ess on the inroads 

«^.ss.tE5w5S3SSs£5 s s ; 

THE EMPIRE'S OUTLOOK 

her triumph in seizing for herself advantages' of aU kind, a, thl "T* 
ofTmer,^ ^"^ "* » & Ww 2l?3fi£%o'& 

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Empire outside of England can an observer find that contentment, 
peace and progress which it is the British boast that all who dwell 
therein possess. 

THE ENGLISH AT HOME 

Let us look briefly at the situation in Great Britain itself. There 
the masters of the Empire, the small group who have directly or 
indirectly in their hands the power and wealth which go with govern- 
ment, find themselves for the first time in their history confronted by 
a conjunction of mighty forces that are considering not the redress 
of more or less heavy grievances, but the wiping out of the present 
caste system of government with all its traditions and its differing classes 
and replace it by the rule of an aroused and aggressive proletariat. 

This is the nightmare that mars the hitherto pleasant existence of 
the Cecils and the Balfours and their assistants, the Georges, the Asquiths, 
the Greys, the Smiths and the Carsons. This is the menace, the danger 
and nearness of which may for a brief time deter the governing classes 
from using their sea power to prevent America from reaching the 
markets of the world in order to keep them, as they believe they should 
be kept, entirely for England. 

The three great Unions of Great Britain — the Miners, the Railway 
Men and the Transport Workers, are now demanding the nationalization 
of all the coal mines of Great Britain, and Robert Smilie, their 
extraordinary leader, said at the recent Trades' Congress in Glasgow, 
that this was not intended to be the end of the program, but only a 
step in the march to take over all forms of industrial activities. 

The war carried on by the leaders of the English governing classes 
has aroused the British masses to a realization of their power and to 
the full measure of what they believe to be the necessities of the hour. 
They are no longer satisfied to be the hewers of wood and the drawers 
of water for the privileged few, but are now insistent upon having not 
alone some say in what is going cm, but if they have their way — upon 
assuming entire control of the activities of their country. 

Jack Cade may have been the precursor of Robert Smilie in demand- 
ing that the people should govern, but the fate which overtook him is 
not likely to be Smilie's, who to-day stands much more chance of being 
Premier of England than he does of following Jack Cade to the scaffold. 
The three great Unions acting in concert in the month of March last, 
compelled, with the intervention of the government, a settlement of their 
demands by the capitalists. This will require the payment annually of an 
additional "five hundred millions to the industrial workers of Great 
Britain. Out of whose pockets is this immense sum to come? Not out 
of the pockets of the capitalists of England unless the hand of the 
diplomat of England has lost its cunning. 

If industrial peace can be brought to Great Britain for a generation 
by this and similar concessions, repeated if necessary time after time, 
the capitalists of England will look, as in the past they have not looked 
in vain, to have the burden taken from their shoulders and placed 
on those who are the competitors of England or who may be compelled 
to pay her toll for the freight going over the seas that God Almighty 
intended should be for the use of all mankind. 

ENGLISH COAL 

With the additional price placed upon the production of coal by 
the increase the miners have wrung from the coal owners, the English 



coal is driven from the markets of the world, unless it is to be kept 
there by England's control of the carrying trade of the world. 

English coal, since England became the work shop of the world, 
has been used by her to build up her power in many ways — but in no 
way more successfully than as an article of export in order to make up 
bulk with her manufactured articles— manufactured from the raw ma- 
terials imported to England from every quarter of the globe. 

Ships which enter her ports laden to the gunwales with raw 
material needed to keep her factories working and her people employed, 
would have gone back loaded very lightly with the smaller bulk of 
manufactured commodities if it were not that she could make up the 
difference in bulk in British coal. This can no longer compete with 
American and other coals to advantage as it formerly did, and England in 
order to keep control of the world markets must continue to export coal. 
This she can do only by controlling the ships which ply the seven seas 
and carry on the commerce between the different races of mankind. 
When we consider that the economic unrest and industrial discontent 
are growing by leaps and bounds and the power of her organized groups 
of workers is growing apace; that the people are utterly dissatisfied with 
existing conditions and the tremendous burden of debt which the war 
imposed — and have a growing realization of their importance to England 
coming to them with every succeeding concession made to them — 
we find the evidence that trouble for the governing classes in England 
is only beginning. 

When to this is added Jhe dissatisfaction among her allies with 
the way in which, as usual, England has seized the lion's share of the 
spoils of war; the ever increasing distrust of her fairness by the nations 
which were neutral in the recent war — nations which while small in area 
are big in mtelligenceand power to make opinion throughout the world 
— it is evident that it will require all the famed genius of English 
diplomats to keep England afloat as a going concern unless she can 
make some sort of a deal that shall put at her command the practically 
limitless resources of America. 

THE ENGLISH ATTEMPT TO CONTROL AMERICA 

The ingenius Cecil and the Slim Smuts felt that they had found the 
needed help in the British plan of a League of Nations which was 
adopted by Mr. Wilson and which they felt would be swallowed by 
the Senate of the United States as easily and enthusiastically as it 
was by the American Representatives at the Peace Conference. If 
that plan had been adopted, as England fondly hoped it would be, 
the governing classes of England could look with entire satisfaction upon 
the future. They would have harnessed to their chariot wheels the 
invincible might of America. They would have been guaranteed for 
all time in possession of all their stolen loot, by the liberty loving 
people of America. The lands, with all their wealth, which they stole 
from their possessors throughout the length and breadth of the world, 
would continue indefinitely to be theirs, through the power of America. 

The vantage points gained by the closing of the great seas would 
continue to be England's. Gibraltar torn from Spain; Malta rent from 
France; Suez stolen from Egypt and with France euchered out of her 
half of the loot; Aden taken from Arabia— all the vantage points all 
round the globe — all their coaling stations; their naval stations, Esqui- 
mault, Halifax, Bermuda— aimed at the heart of America; England's 
control of the seas, and through it her over-lordship of the world 
would have been hers, humanly speaking forever, not in spite of America, 
but with the connivance, assent and guarantee of America. No^ more 
colossal scheme of aggrandizement has ever been dreamed of in the 

11 



history of mankind. No more gigantic bunco game was ever thought 
of than this effort, in the name of peace, to make a permanent condition 
of the hideous system of conquest, of robbery, of injustice which is 
called the British Empire. But the England which had its way at 
Paris and which hoped to beguile and cajole the Senate of the United 
States has had a rude awakening. The representatives of America who 
were willing to give to the British Empire six votes in a proposed 
League to the one vote given to these United States, the mightiest 
nation of freemen in the world to-day, seemed to have reckoned without 
their host. It is probable that hereafter, any one who represents 
America in any diplomatic conference will see to it as a matter of self- 
interest, if not as a matter of self-respect or love of country, that 
there shall never be laid for ratification before the representatives of 
a proud and self-respecting people, any plan that would deprive America 
of her rights, while assuring to England the aid and assistance she so 
vitally needs and the necessity for which is evidenced by her request 
for a guarantee. 

ENGLAND IN DESPERATE SITUATION 

The diplomats of England will be put to it to keep the Empire a 
going concern, with difficulties mounting for it in every quarter of the 
globe; with an awakened and hostile Old World; with former allies 
and opponents both looking to undo the work of the past; ready, if 
compelled to do so, to undersell the British producer; with the British 
producer harrassed by having to give larger wages to those who turn 
01U his products and compelled to compete at once with the solvent 
United States of America and the insolvent countries of Continental 
Europe. 

The English have only the proverbial Hobson's choice in the 
matter, pn the^ Continent they are confronted by economic rivals 
that are impoverished in wealth and are broken in power but which 
have added to the habits of industry and economy, acquired through 
generations, the sharp spur of dire necessity. We hear of a revived 
industrial Germanic world where the industrial leaders retain their 
organizing capacity and the industrial workers are seeking not chances 
to shirk, but chances to work; not how few, but how many, hours 
they may labor; not how little, but how much, they may produce. Con- 
trast that with conditions in England and then looking to the West 
contemplate with the Englishman the prospect of having to compete 
with an America of unlimited resources and of incalculable power. Is 
it any wonder if the English feel that they must avail themselves of all 
their advantages if they are to survive not to speak of, if they are to 
rule the world? 

The English statesman must secure for his traders and merchants 
and manufacturers a certainty of a market for their output. How can 
he do that except by keeping the United States of America — the only 
solvent competitor of England — out of the market? Give him the credit 
of believing that he will do this by fair means if he can. Credit also 
the fact that if he can persuade the American exporter to remain 
outside the markets of the British Empire, persuade him he will. If 
he can cajole him to do so, cajole him he will, and so of all the markets 
in the world in which he is obliged to compete with the United States. 
But if he cannot persuade or cajole or flatter him to remain outside or 
give up the market entirely — and has only the means of coercion left — 
the means by which the Spanish, Dutch, French and German traders 
were made to loosen their grip upon the markets sought by England, 
then coerce him he must in order to save himself from revolution at 
home and destruction abroad. 

12 



If as an alternative of internal revolution he is required to lay 
aside his gratitude — forget that America saved him — in order to fight 
with America, who will believe that for one moment he will hesitate 
at the choice thus presented? 

If the American Mercantile Marine which suddenly came into 
existence cannot be otherwise disposed of, what is there in the history 
of English statesmen to lead any student of history to believe that 
they will hesitate to use the mighty and potent weapon which is in 
their hands, in order to sweep it from the seas and thus free England 
from her difficulties.'' 

Why did these able diplomats of England insist that the question 
of the freedom of the seas should not be even discussed at the Paris 
Conference unless they realized its vital importance to England? 
Of what use is the fleet unless it be for the purpose of making America 
bend the knee as all other commercial competitors have been compelled 
to bend it? 

THE ENGLISH NAVY 

Surely no one will believe that England intends to use her Navy 
against a broken Russia or the scattered fragments of the Central 
Empires? It is not required against the small neutral nations of Europe, 
nor against the comparatively weak Republics of South America. It 
is not needed to put Italy in its place or to be used against France which 
Clemenceau and Viviani and their associates have turned into a con- 
tinental vassal of England. It is not required against the smaller gov- 
ernments set up throughout Europe largely as buffer states for France; 
against an Africa turned largely into a British continent; a continental 
Asia largely likewise turned into a British colony. A Canada and an 
Australia many thousands of miles away from England do not require 
it except as an instrument to keep them in order. 

There are but two countries which now loom up as serious rivals 
in power to the British Empire — Japan — the Island Empire and sole 
survivor with England of all the Empires which so recently encircled the 
globe — and the United States. 

Against which is it likely to be used? Against Japan, the close 
ally of England, which has just tremendously increased its power with 
England and Wilson's assent, and which is a commercial rival of England 
only in a small way, in spite of its taking over the silk and cotton 
business to such an astonishing extent, lacking, until Shantung was 
presented to it, the coal and iron necessary to any hope of becoming 
a serious economic rival of England — or against these United States 
of America? 

The only serious rival of England economically in the future, is 
the country whose system of government was founded as a protest 
against the tyranny of England and which has set the tune by which 
liberty-loving people have marched since the Declaration of Independence 
was made by Thomas Jefferson and his associates in 1776. That rival 
is America, which, since its beginning has been an object always of 
distrust and generally of hatred upon the part of England — America 
which gained her independence from England only after seven years 
of bitter warfare, during which time England resorted to all the cruellies 
and barbarities which she charged against her enemies in the late war. 

America in 1812 fought for the freedom of the seas. America 
maintained then the freedom of the seas — American statesmen taught 
that the seas belonged to man and not to nations. America has no 
territorial ambitions to be satisfied at the expense of any other nation 
on earth — America whose existence is a mark of reproach to all the 
monarchal governments of the world, is the menace to the practical 

13 



statesmen of England which must be overthrown if England is to 
continue to control the markets of the world. 

THE ENGLISH VIEW OF AMERICA 

Deep in their hearts the English statesmen are under no illusion 
as to America's point of view. They know that the vast majority of 
the people of this country sincerely believe in liberty and freedom for 
all mankind; that they are not alone strict adherents of a Republican 
form oi government but are tilled with the thought that eventually all 
mankind shall share in the blessings which come with the ordered 
liberty of a Republic. They know that a vast majority of the people 
of America sympathize with every curtailment of special privilege in 
favor of the rights of the plain people of England. They know that such 
ideals are the magnet which has drawn such unprecedented growth 
and prosperity to these United States of America and that all this is 
having its effect not alone upon the people of Australia, of South 
Africa, of Canada, of New Zealand, and upon the down-trodden millions 
of India, of Egypt and the people of the scattered countries of Asia 
and Africa upon which the English governing classes have set their 
heel, but upon the masses of the people of England itself. They know 
above all things that deep in the American breast there burns a fire of 
sympathy for the people of Ireland and that America will never be 
satisfied until England, whether by choice or compulsion, leaves the 
shores of Ireland and permits her to resume her place among the 
independent nations of the earth. 

They know all this and they know that with the increasing popula- 
tion of our country and with the growing demands of our people for 
better living conditions, more and more will our industrial development 
require that we find markets abroad for the output of our factories 
and the product of our fields. Seeing the growth of the American 
Mercantile Marine, which they cannot control, they must inevitably 
come to the conclusion that it should be destroyed while there is yet 
time and before our fleet has reached the point where neither the 
British fleet nor any combination England may be able to make will be 
able to destroy it. 

ENGLAND'S NECESSITIES 

just as other statesmen of England in their day required the 
Spanish, Dutch, French, Danish and German fleets to be destroyed 
and -the commerce of these peoples swept from the seas, so to-day the 
traditions of England will justify the thought that when her interests 
require that the fleet of America shall be destroyed, and American 
commerce again swept from the seas, England will attempt to destroy it. 

Many men will refuse to believe that England would adopt such a 
course of action. Many even of our own statesmen, beguiled by 
the honeyed phrases of English writers and spokesmen, will feel that 
it is an outrage to question the good faith of England or to believe that 
for her own selfish interest. England would forget the debt of gratitude 
she owes to America who has so recently saved her. But men worthy 
to be called statesmen remember that it is by the past we judge nations 
as we judge men. There is no such thing as gratitude among those 
who govern states, and England would not hesitate to do in the 20th 
Century whatever her necessities might require her to do. The England 
that in 1870 stood by and applauded the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine by 
Bismarck and then saw it made one of the causes of war in 1914 would 
not hesitate in the 20th Century to do what its interests required it to 
do. The England which burned the Capitol of our country in 1813 and 
burned Annapolis and Buffalo in the same war; the England which over- 

14 



threw the little Republics of South Africa in order to get possession of 
the diamond and gold mines of those countries would not hesitate now 
to do what its governing class felt necessary for their interest. 

If there be a new England as a result of the war, if those who judge 
by the past judge her wrongly, let her set herself right with a doubting 
mankind by agreeing to the disarmament of the fleet and its reduction 
in size to a point where it will suffice for the defense of England against 
any likely or unlikely invasion, and w^here it will cease to be a menace 
to the liberty of mankind. 

The last thing that Americans want to see is another great war. 
They won the last war in order to put a stop, if possible, to all future 
wars, and their sound common sense and keen judgment teach them that 
the way to stop wars is to put it out of the power of any nation or small 
groups of nations to dominate the world. The possession of such power 
as the English Navy gives is a dreadful temptation to use it. Let it be 
destroyed now that it can exist only for the purpose of offensive war — 
now that its existence can no longer reasonably or honestly be defended, 
on the ground that it is to be used as a defense against other great 
navies. 

Such action on the part of the governing class in England will 
do more for them than a thousand reiterated protestations of their 
devotion to peace. Actions speak louder than words. An England 
voluntarily setting aside her control of the seas, means an England 
mindful of the rights of others, instead of an England insistent upon 
wronging all other nations. 

It has just been arranged that she will not pay the interest upon 
part of her public debt which is held abroad— the interest is to be 
added to the capital — and yet the Chancellor of her Exchequer asks for 
the stupendous sum of $700,000,000 to defray her naval charges for the 
next year. The reduction of her navy to a defensive point would remove 
this fearful load from the backs of her already heavily burdened people 
and go a long way towards retaining her credit which is shaken as 
never before. More than all it would remove from the minds of ob- 
servant men of all races the fixed idea that England seeks and intends 
to have absolute world power. 

If there is a new England let her remove her army of occupation 
from Ireland. 

Her statesmen realize more than ever that America has been aroused 
to see that England really holds Ireland not alone through hostility 
to her people; not because they feel that the people of Ireland can never 
forgive the wrongs of the past; not even because of the great profit, 
amounting to more than $200,000,000 last year, that the English derive 
from their hold upon Ireland, but because the physical control of Ireland 
is necessary to the continued existence of British Imperialism. As 
George Washington well said there would be no Irish question if Ireland 
were some hundreds of miles distant from England. Its very proximity 
— its position between England and the oceans of the world makes its 
control vital to England in her control of the seas. The world now 
realizes the position of Ireland and that its independence will mean a 
great, contribution to the independence of Europe in that it will deprive 
England of her present absolute control of all the waters that approach 
Western and Northern Europe. Ireland is the outpost of Europe in the 
Northern Atlantic and should be controlled by people friendly to all 
of Europe and not to England alone. 

England whose shores cannot be approached except by passing 
Ireland will be shorn of much power and be no longer a menace to the 
rest of the world if a free and independent Ireland, inhabited by a 
normal population of eighteen or twenty million people, on terms of 
amity and concord with all nations — a special ally or bitter foe of no 

15 



other country — controls the Western approaches to Europe. It will 
make for the freedom of the seas and for free and unrestricted trading 
among all nations, as will no other single contribution that can be 
made. Think what it will mean to the commerce of America — not 
alone Irish commerce, freed for the first time in centuries from English 
control, thrown open to the markets of the world and growing by leaps 
and bounds; not alone the population of Ireland increasing to normal 
size, but its value as a point of debarkation and distribution for American 
commerce with all the countries of Europe. 

Out of the chaos that is now Europe, must come in due time again, 
the prosperity and commercial activity which go with the return of 
ordered liberty. Out of the chaos which now exists must come with 
the return of order, unnumbered demands for the American commodities 
which the devastated sections of Europe will require for reconstruction. 
With the return of a reign of law and order among three hundred 
millions of civilized people will come renewed commercial intercourse 
on a large scale, with America. 

We must seek some points of distribution for such commerce. 
Where can we so well find them as in Ireland, with its position of 
comparative proximity to America; its unrivaled harbors; its sympa- 
thetic people; its ideal location for sending goods in every direction 
to the different parts of Europe? Add to all this that it is in no sense 
our rival as a manufacturing nation, as are England, Belgium, Holland, 
France, as was and will be again, Germany. Add to that that its harbors 
are not crowded with shipping as are those of England. They are not 
dotted with piers and wharves and quays that belong to our competitors 
and that will, if we use English or Dutch or Belgium harbors, compel 
us to load and unload after the ships of our rivals shall have loaded and 
unloaded, or in out of the way places under difficulties and in some 
places without needed security. 

THE BRITISH NAVY A MENACE TO AMERICA 

English statesmen are always ready with excuses to explain the situ- 
ation in their own interest and to show how a competitor is at fault, but 
they cannot now explain the facts that the continued existence of the 
British Navy is a menace only to America, and that it is to continue 
to exist only on the ground that use will be found for it in serving 
the interests of England. 

Jts upkeep is a tremendous charge upon the impoverished masses 
of Great Britain. That can only be excused on the ground that it is 
to be used in their interests in the immediate future and it can be 
used only as a weapon of defense or of offense. It cannot be any 
longer alleged with any probability of belief that it is to be used for the 
defense of Great Britain, for no one now threatens England with 
invasion. No one now threatens to shut off the food supply of England, 
for which she is dependent upon the outer world for more than forty 
weeks in every year. No longer can she point to the navies of Russia, 
or Germany as a menace only to be met by her gigantic navy. Those 
fleets have actually ceased to exist so far as they have not been annexed 
to the British Navy. The only navies left are those of America, of 
Japan, and of France. The others are negligible. Only very timorous 
statesmen of England will fear France, their old rival, whom the sub- 
servient and stupid policies of Clemenceau and his associates have 
made into a broken vassal of England upon the # Continent. 

Japan, the pagan Empire, with which the ruling classes of England 
choose to ally her against all the white races of the world, has a 
fleet which is no longer a menace to any country save America. 
Japan has voluntarily put herself into a position where she is tied 

16 



by the closest kind of an alliance with England. There remains America 
alone. 

IS ENGLAND SINCERE? 

Some of the great liberals of England— of whom there are a few 
in every generation — speak of her desire to lead in a movement for 
world disarmament. They are splendid special pleaders for her but 
they never have been able to influence her actions, eloquently as they 
asserted that they spoke of her aspirations. Her Morleys and Brights 
'and Massinghams are useful for ornaments and for foreign effect, but 
they have not governed England or swayed her actions. Let her now 
show that they really speak for her — let her disarm, not her Army, for 
that is comparatively negligible, but her Navy, which is, humanly 
speaking, all powerful. If she does this, she will prove that the leopard 
can change his spots. If she does not, then let our statesmen awaken 
and beware, lest Imperial England, running true to form, shall seek for 
permanent world domination by the destruction of the American fleet 
just as she temporarily has got it by the destruction of all her erst- 
while competitors and rivals. 

With general disarmament the future of American liberty is secure. 
England urged the peace loving people of America to go into the war 
on the theory that they were going to bring the right of self-deter- 
mination and the application of the principles of democracy to all the 
nations of the earth. How rude has been our awakening? 

The spokesmen of England have accused us of many things in 
the past — not alone her diplomats, her generals and her admirals, but 
her novelists and poets, but no one of them has yet the distinction of 
asserting that we were fighting for democracy in order to overthrow 
her government, or take away any of her wealth. That fact should 
dispose of any apprehension that the British Navy must continue to 
exist for the defense of England as against us and leaves it no possible 
use except as a weapon of offense against a rival of England. 

Surely it cannot be needed against the broken remnants of Russia 
or the Central Empires, the little neutrals, her vassal France, or the 
vassals of France. It cannot be that they distrust England's close ally, 
Japan. It leaves us back where we started. The British Navy can only 
be used as a weapon of offense against the navy and commerce of the 
sole remaining solvent and serious economic rival of England, to wit, 
the United States of America. 

England owes America billions of dollars. England has lost to 
America, the financial leadership of the world. England by the destruc- 
tion of America would regain the financial leadership and rid herself, 
as the victorious opponent, of her debt to America. 

English statesmen can see nothing in the continued growth of 
America except the strengthening of England's great economic rival. 
They, to their credit be it said, never work in the interest of any 
country but England. These men who now rule the world, as they 
believe, know that with the elimination of America they could securely 
hold the world for centuries. 

Our destruction would mean the overthrow of the greatest ex- 
periment in democracy that the world has ever known. It would throw 
back the world, England included, into the hands of the special priv- 
ileged and ruling few. In every country of the world today the masses 
are raising their heads against the classes, insisting that government 
must exist in the future only for the welfare of all — and not for the 
exploitation of the many by the chosen few. The destruction of the 
greatest experiment in democracy as founded in America would mean 
the renaissance of special privilege; the triumph of monarchial instttu- 

17 



tions. It would be a greater set back to the world than was the de- 
struction of Rome and mankind again would be compelled to struggle 
for centuries before it could lift up its head to bring liberty and free- 
dom to any quarter of the globe. 

The struggle between America and the British Empire is inevitable. 
It has already begun. It has entered upon its economic stage, driven 
by the stress of circumstances which no group of statesmen or philos- 
ophers can control. The two countries are driven to seek the same 
markets; to strive for the same trade in order that their people may 
live in comfort. The contest in its peaceful stage could be prolonged, 
but not avoided, if some division of the markets could be made, if 
some arrangement whereby there would be business enough for all 
were possible. But such a condition exists only in the dreams of the 
philosophers, not in the hard matter of fact concrete conditions of every 
day life. 

THE CONTEST IS HERE 

The struggle is not to come, it has already been entered upon. 
England has already shut us out from her own markets for many articles 
and commodities which we produce. In ever}' one of her colonies, 
England has a school of politicians who are openly urging closer trade 
relations with the mother country, at the expense of her rivals. She 
controls to-day, among other things, the rubber and wool of the world. 
Slie is seeking control of the oil fields upon which depends the future 
of transportation. Through her control of the cables and her system 
of trade permits and passports she has already shut out the American 
trader for all practical purposes from many of the markets of the world. 
She is only as yet feeling her way, intent upon going at present as 
far as she is permitted to go on and in the end as far as her power 
will enable her to go. She has filled our country with her exchange 
editors, lecturers, ministers, professors and propagandists in order to 
flatter and cajole us and put the people off their guard. This is no 
new devise for her. She strives to weaken and to destroy, as enemies 
of America, those here who are her opponents and who cannot be 
cajoled or coerced into taking her point of view of every question that 
is to her interest. She is well served here not only by recent importations 
and by her casual visitors to our shores, but by her Carnegie Fund 
group and those of similar ilk, by the descendants of the Tories who 
honestly believe that the United States should never have been separated 
from England and who would rejoice to see it again united with the 
British Empire. 

A grave crisis confronts the statesmen of our country. 

No greater problem has ever addressed itself to the courage and 
foresight and statesmanship of any group of elected freemen. 

We stand at the parting of the ways. After years of bloody war 
which destroyed millions of lives and billions of treasure, the hopes 
of mankind turned to the spokesmen of our country who appeared 
in Paris, to have them end war, destroy tyranny and bring liberty 
to all the oppressed peoples of the earth. The outcome of that eventful 
conference is one of the outstanding failures of history. The marshalled 
forces of special privilege have once again triumphed and to them 
that had, has been given. The fly has walked into the parlor of the 
spider. The ingenius novice has learned the lesson of the ages that the 
amateur must bow to the skill of the professional and the amiable 
Wilson has succumbed to the wiles and guile of the artful Lloyd George, 
and to the grim arbitrariness of the practical Clemenceau. But with 
the art of the experienced politician, he has presented to the world the 
shadow of his performance as if it were the substance of his promise 

IS 



and has tried to coerce the Senate to adopt without amendment, or even 
examination, the British prepared League of Nations which would give 
to England, under another name, the super-sovereignty of the world, 
and reduce us to a position of humiliating subservience that would 
destroy our independence and exhaust our power. 

Our country hailed a year ago as the moral leader of the world, 
with friends on all sides, is now scoffed at as a hypocrite and looked 
upon by many of the Nations of the Old World as an enemy. We, 
who won the war and destroyed Militarism are now in danger of setting 
up the rule of Navalism so as to again enthrone might as the arbiter 
of all disputed questions among the Nations. 

Only the Senate can prevent this great wrong and restore our 
country to the proud position it held so short a time ago. The Senate 
is now the bulwark of America's liberty, and the hope of suffering 
humanity. If it falters in its duty to safeguard the rights and sovereignty 
of our country, America will fall as have fallen mighty democracies in 
the past. If it lives up to its high traditions and considers above all 
things the interests of America, it will preserve our country, save 
human liberty and destroy, with injury to none who seek liberty, the 
grim curse of Navalism which hangs like a heavy cloud over the fortunes 
of mankind. 

Mighty forces are working from without and within to swing 
America away from her old moorings; to take her away from her moral 
leadership of mankind and to subordinate her to the position of a satellite 
swinging around the British Empire. Mighty are these forces; numerous 
are their weapons; potent are their agents; plausible are their argu- 
ments; but mightier still is the love of liberty among the great mass 
of the plain people of our country and in the end, bitter as may be 
the struggle, dark as may seem the way, the forces of justice and right 
will triumph and America will be preserved from these attacks as she 
has been from those which seemed about to overwhelm her in the 
past — preserved to remain a Beacon light for those who seek liberty 
and value it as the greatest gift which a Beneficent Creator has be- 
stowed upon mankind. America will triumph in the end in any contest 
which the British ruling class may force upon her, but it would be a 
blessing to all mankind, and to no portion of it greater than to the 
masses of England, if the United States Senators, the statesmen who 
control in the last analysis the destiny of America and through that 
largely the destinv of the world, should bring about by the defeat of the 
British proposed League of Nations, an International Conference which 
will consider as its first and most important problem the real freedom 
of the seas and bv insisting upon naval disarmament, will destroy 
Navalism — twin brother of Militarism— and thus bring permanent peace 
to all the nations of the earth. 



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